


Drift Compatibility

by WardenRoot



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Pacific Rim, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-05-19 12:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14873808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WardenRoot/pseuds/WardenRoot
Summary: Sara leaves the jaeger program after her sister's death but returns after five years. She discovers she's drift compatible with a certain blonde who happens to be the one person she's not allowed to drift with.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to the people who remotivated me to finish this!
> 
> It's not 100% accurate to the movie, either 'cause I couldn't properly remember while writing or 'cause I just prefer it this way.
> 
> This will be around 6-8 chapters, five of which are already written, and the next chapter should be up in like 2 days I think.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy!

Sara Lance is on the Queen’s Gambit with her sister’s boyfriend when the kaiju first appear. One second everything is fine, and the next a giant creature tears the ship in half and Sara is pulled out into the ocean. She’s certain she’s dead, some sick twist of fate for going with Oliver, but then she’s pulled out of the ocean and onto another ship. She can hear people shouting and guns firing and people being pulled out of the ocean as she’s carried inside the ship.

She passes out before they reach their destination and when she wakes up it’s in dry clothes in a warm bed with a strange man in a trench coat standing between the bed and the door. He tells her his name, Rip Hunter, and that she’s safe for now. She learns the monster that sank the Queen’s Gambit has been called “kaiju”. Rip asks for her name and where she’s from and tells her he’ll arrange for her to go home when they reach land. She asks about other survivors from the Gambit but Rip doesn’t know, they had had multiple boats out and any one of them could have picked up survivors. Rip tells her to rest but she finds closing her eyes only conjures up images of the kaiju, and of Oliver dying despite not having seen him die, despite hoping he survived.

When they reach port she’s put in a group with other people, other victims of the kaiju and they’re all divided up by where they’re going next, where home is. A few are there because their home has been destroyed by the kaiju. Sara tries to look for Oliver and his dad but it’s hard with all the people and she’s occupied with following the people who will take her home. She’s not sure how much time has passed but at one point she’s given a phone and told she has 15 minutes to call her loved ones and tell them she’s alive. Her dad cries when he hears her voice and she can hear him shout to her mom and sister. She asks if they’ve heard of any other survivors but they haven’t and with every minute Sara loses hope that Oliver or anyone else she knows might have survived. She tells her family she loves them and that she’s being sent home and then the phone is taken from her and she’s guided somewhere else and a day later she’s on a plane back to Starling City and she still hasn’t seen Oliver.

When she lands in Starling she wastes no time pushing her way out of the plane and through the airport. She’s finally someplace familiar and her family are waiting for her on the other side and she just wants this nightmare to be over. Before she reaches the doors that will take her to the other side of the airport where you don’t have to have a ticket to reach she feels familiar arms pull her into a hug and she registers sandy hair before she’s pushed against Oliver’s chest.

“You survived,” Oliver says relieved and Sara starts crying. She was certain he was dead, certain she’d never see him again and certain she would have to deal with everything alone but Oliver survived and it’s a small comfort.

“Your dad?” she manages to ask when Oliver let’s her go. Oliver shakes his head and looks to the ground. They don’t say anything else, Oliver puts a hand on her back and then they’re walking through the doors together and they spot their families waiting for them. Sara sees Laurel and she thinks she looks relieved, before she notices the arm Oliver has on Sara’s back and her face drops and Sara hates herself for having hurt her sister. Oliver lets go of her when her dad pulls her into a hug, soon joined by her mom as well and Oliver is embraced by the Queen family. Laurel tells her she’s happy she’s not dead and then walks away to where the car is waiting, ahead of everyone else.

It takes time but Laurel forgives her in the end. When they hear news of another kaiju attack Laurel puts her arms around Sara and tells her she’s so happy her little sister came back and she better stay by her side. Neither of them date Oliver, there are much more important things in this world than Oliver Queen, like the monsters attacking their planet. Sara still meets up with Oliver every now and again, she has no one else to talk about the Queen’s Gambit with, no one else who understands what she went through. Her family tries to get her to see a therapist but Sara won’t talk, can’t find the words to even begin to describe how it felt.

She starts working out and fighting as a way to let out her emotions. Laurel starts going with her after a while and it’s nice, for a little while it feels like just the two of them against the world. She still sees the kaiju every time she closes her eyes and her dreams are haunted by the Gambit being destroyed.

Two years after the kaiju attack they hear of the Jaeger program through the news, giant robots to fight giant monsters, and that Rip Hunter leads the program. After the first successful piloting of a jaeger, and the first successful fight against a kaiju with it, Sara decides she wants to join the program. She tells her family during dinner, tells them she’s already made up her mind, she’s going to fight for her planet. Her parents beg her not to go, they already thought they’d lost her once and they just want their girls to be safe. Laurel says nothing.

When evening comes Laurel finds Sara, tells her to take her with her. The two of them against the kaiju. Sara wants nothing more than for Laurel to be safe, but it’s Laurel’s decision and Sara doesn’t want to lose her sister, and she’s going to a strange academy, to learn how to fight strange monsters in strange machines and having her sister with her will be a welcome familiarity. When they tell their parents of Laurel’s decision to go with her they look at them with pride, but it doesn’t stop Quentin from begging Sara to not take Laurel with her. He understands that Sara wants to go, Sara was there when it all began, but Laurel wasn’t and he can’t take losing both of his daughters. Dinah tells them to take care of each other and to kick the ass of anyone trying to attack their planet, their home. She still cries when they leave.

Rip recognizes Sara the moment they meet again and accepts her and Laurel to the academy. The first part of their training is mostly theoretical and Sara longs to punch something but she pays attention, absorbs every word spoken about how they can fight the kaiju. Both Sara and Laurel pass the officer training with flying colors and then start the fight training and Sara is grateful for her decision to start training back in Starling, making her more prepared than she would have been for the intense workouts the academy puts them through.

She makes friends with the others in her class, pulls Laurel with her on game nights to try and forget for just a few hours how doomed the world is. They often have the class fight each other, rotating who fights who to determine who best to team up, of the people who make it to rangers. Sara meets a few good opponents but no one she syncs as well with as with Laurel. It’s no surprise to anyone when they start drift sync testing and she’s paired up with Laurel. They’re talked through thoroughly about the dangers of drifting, of how they must keep their mind strong and whatever they do, don’t chase the rabbits. Sara respects the risks but she’s with her sister and she doesn’t think a lot can go wrong, they’re closer than they’ve ever been and they know pretty much everything about each other.

When testing comes it doesn’t stop Sara from almost getting stuck, drowning as the Gambit goes down, or Laurel from hearing her sister was on the Gambit when it went down and no one knowing if she survived. But Sara reminds herself that the Gambit is long gone, and then Sara assures Laurel that she’s fine, she’s right here and not drowning and then the memories go away and it’s just Sara and Laurel and they feel they can do anything together, they’re going to do great things together. And they do, for a while.

They finish training and get their very own jaeger. They’re asked to name it and the first thing that comes to Sara’s mind is a Canary, and she says as much. The jaeger is bigger than anything they’ve seen, and it’s as black as the night and nothing like a canary but for some reason it just feels right to Sara. Laurel steps up next to her and adds ‘Black Canary’ and together they kick Kaiju ass with it. They go solo on most missions but sometimes they go with other jaegers, mostly it’s people from their own class, the Totem, the Lucas and the Wave. The jaegers' pilots, Amaya & Zari, Ray & Nate & Wally, and Snart & Mick take to calling Sara Captain, as any time they’re on a mission together, or even just training in between missions, they trust Sara to make the tough decisions. Laurel teases her about it but she’s also immensely proud of her sister and the person she’s become.

Likewise Sara couldn’t be prouder of Laurel, couldn’t be prouder of the work they do and couldn’t be happier about piloting the Black Canary with her sister, Sara and Laurel against the world. Until it’s not Sara and Laurel against the world anymore. Until they’re woken up in the middle of the night to fight a category three kaiju known as Darhk and Sara watches as it rips a part of the Black Canary’s head away, the same part that Laurel’s connected to, and Sara screams as her sister is lost to the ocean. Her entire body feels like it’s on fire from where the kaiju is attacking the jaeger that she’s still connected to, and her mind feels like it’s going to explode from no longer having a co-pilot. But somehow she manages to kill Darhk for taking her sister from her, and somehow she manages to pilot the jaeger to some distant beach without her head exploding.

She awakes in the medical wing of the Waverider and she keeps waiting for Laurel to appear, keeps willing Laurel to be there, to walk through the door and tell her everything will be okay. But Laurel never comes and Rip starts talking about finding a new co-pilot. The next day Sara leaves without a word, leaves the Waverider, the Jaeger and the people she’s come to think of as her team behind. She can’t take it without Laurel, it was supposed to be the two of them against the world, the two of them and the Black Canary and dead kaiju. But Laurel died, the Black Canary with her and Sara doesn’t want another co-pilot, doesn’t want to drift with anyone else. Her mind is quiet for the first time in forever, Laurel’s ever present mind no longer there and Sara feels empty, dead, and she supposes the part of her worth anything died with Laurel.

She doesn’t know where to go, the Waverider has been her home for so long, and she can’t stand the thought of going back to her parents, to her father who had begged her not to take Laurel with her, and tell them how she failed Laurel, how she wishes she could switch places with her. One day she looks at the news and they talk about the death of the Black Canary and the death of its two pilots with it and Sara silently thanks Rip for letting the world think she’s dead, Sara can’t live, not really, and the world thinking she’s dead feels like a gift.

Somehow she ends up working on the wall that’s supposed to keep the kaiju out. It will never work, Sara’s fought the kaijus, been present as they teared a Jaeger apart. Nothing will keep the kaiju out but working on the wall gives her something to do and a place to stay. Not long after working on the wall she starts going out at night and picking fights. She can’t fight the kaiju so instead she fights the scum taking advantage of the chaos and fear the kaiju create just by existing. It feels good to fight, even if the local criminals aren’t nearly as good at fighting as someone trained by the Jaeger Academy, but it let’s her punch out her frustration and anger and grief and it makes her feel a little closer to Laurel; fighting was their thing.

 

She’s content with her life until one night she comes home and sees a familiar brown trench coat covered back that she hasn’t seen in five years waiting for her.

“No,” she says before Rip even gets the chance to turn around. When he does his eyes are sympathetic.

“Sara, just hear me out.”

“No.”

Rip ignores her, because of course he does, of course he can’t just let her live the rest of her life in whatever peace she can find without Laurel.

“The kaiju are getting stronger every time we fight them and the time between each attack keeps decreasing. You’re the best pilot this program has ever seen and we need every ranger we can get.”

“I can’t be a ranger without my co-pilot and in case you haven’t noticed she died.”

“I’m so very sorry about your sister but while she is gone, the world still stands a fighting chance and it needs you. We’ll find you a new partner.”

Sara doesn’t want a new partner, doesn’t want to share her mind with anyone else.

“Do it for Laurel, she would want you to fight back.” Sara knows it’s true, has often thought about what Laurel must think of her, running away after leading Laurel to her death. She’s about to tell Rip to go fuck himself when her hand finds the necklace around her neck, the only thing she has left of Laurel and she wordlessly accepts Rip’s offer, surprising both herself and Rip as she packs up what little belongings she has.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey daddy, it's me. It’s Sara.” Sara takes a breath, tries not to start crying. “I’m sorry I haven’t called in a while.” She bites her lip, trying to think of the words to explain. “I figured you and mom would be better off without hearing from me after everything that happened, and I guess it was just easier, ya know?” She kicks a pebble, trying to focus on breathing. “I left the jaeger program after Laurel, couldn’t do it without her. Wasn’t really living so being dead without actually dying felt like a good compromise.” She catches Rip looking at her from the helicopter, waiting for Sara to hang up and go back to the Waverider with him. “Anyway I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m still here, figure it’ll be over the news soon seeing as I’m rejoining the program. I’m gonna kick some kaiju ass for Laurel. Tell mom I said hi. I love you.” Her voice breaks on the last part and tears start falling freely down her cheeks. She tries to wipe them away and enters the car with Rip, letting him take her back to the place she once called home.

***

Sara breathes in the air in the Waverider when they arrive, despite all the memories tied to it she can’t help but feel like she’s home. Rip leads her to her new quarters, across the base from where she used to share a room with Laurel. He gives her an hour to get reacquainted with the place and eat something before he wants to start testing her with the newest recruits to see if she’s compatible with one of them. She unpacks the few things she brought with her, puts the picture of her and Laurel in front of the Black Canary on her nightstand, throws her phone on the bed and puts her clothes in the drawer, extracting a pair of grey sweatpants and a white tank, provided by the Waverider, from it in the process. She puts the clothes on her bed and takes a shower in the bathroom joined with her quarters. She distinctly remembers not having her own bathroom last time she was here and figures Rip really wants her to stay. Or maybe that was just ‘came back from the dead’ privilege. Just as she’s finished getting dressed again the phone softly vibrates on the bed. Sara takes a steadying breath and answers it when she recognizes her dad’s number.

“Hey daddy.” She hears crying from the other end of the phone.

“Sara?” Sara starts crying at the sound of her dad’s voice.

“It’s me dad.”

“Oh baby I’ve missed you so much. Where’d you disappear off to?”

Sara spends a good half hour talking to her parents, her mom joins in after a few minutes. She tells them of what she’s been doing, excluding her nightly activities, and apologizes for not being able to save Laurel though her parents do their best to tell her it’s not her fault. Sara’s not convinced but then again not even Laurel would be able to convince her of that. Sara tells them she never forgot their voices and Dinah tells her to make sure the monsters that killed her sister pays for what they did, then Sara tells them she has to go, she’s got recruits to fight. Her parents make her promise to call when she’s done and Sara spends five minutes trying to get herself together and not look like she’s been crying for half an hour before she starts making her way towards the training room. Despite having different quarters she quickly finds her way, knows the Waverider as well as the house she grew up in, if not better.

When she enters the training room she finds Rip addressing the recruits. Bennett stands to his left, Sara supposes he’s the one who usually trains them, and to his right stands a tall blonde who Sara doesn’t recognize.

“Ah, and here is Ms. Lance. All right recruits, line up, you will each be sparring with her to determine whether any of you are compatible to be her co-pilot. I suggest you try your best.”

Sara’s surprised to see how excited the recruits look at sparring with her, at potentially being chosen. She looks them all over as they get in a neat line surrounding the floor they’ll be sparring on. She spots a few she thinks might have potential but overall she doesn’t have much hope for being compatible with any of them.

She picks up a bo staff and steps onto the floor, her eyes finding the unknown blonde again. She’s looking curiously at Sara and Sara’s a little disappointed to see she’s not in the line of people who will be sparring with her. She pushes it out of her mind as the first person in line steps onto the floor with her, picking up his own bo staff. Sara goes easy on him, tries to evaluate the general skill of the room so as not to hurt anyone by going all out. He still goes down easy and the next person is called. This time it’s a girl, much younger than Sara and Sara questions if she’s even old enough to be there. She smiles shyly at Sara and Sara expects her to be as easy as the previous recruit but she finds the kid’s got a lot of fight in her. She manages to hit Sara twice, however Sara hits her four times to the girl’s two and they’re not a strong match. Her last blow sends the girl flying to the ground but Sara catches her arm before her back hits the floor and she pulls her up.

“What’s your name?”

“Sin.” The girl, Sin, puts her hand behind her head and evades Sara’s gaze.

“Nice to meet you Sin,” Sara smiles and gives her a nod.

Sin leaves the floor to rejoin her fellow recruits and Sara goes through three more recruits before her eyes find the blonde again and she notices something akin to disapproval among her curiosity as she looks at Sara.

“Can I help you?” Sara asks as she waves the latest recruit back to the others.

“You’re holding back.”

“Excuse me for trying not to hurt anyone.” The woman frowns and it’s clear it wasn’t the answer she was looking for.

“Look, either let me test them my way, or, if you think you can handle it, come fight me.” The moment the words leave her mouth Rip looks like he’s going to protest but the woman’s already picked up a staff and joined Sara in the middle of the recruits.

Sara’s not quite sure what to expect from her current sparring partner and spends a minute sizing her up. She doesn’t expect the skill with which she uses the staff and the woman manages to tap her quite easily. Sara adjusts and taps the woman next. They go back and forth like that for a while and Sara revels in it, for the first time in a long time she finds herself not holding back. She’s not trying to hurt her partner but she expects her to be able to block most of her hits, which turns out to be a correct assumption, and her partner seems to feel the same way and Sara _smiles_. She thinks it’s the first time she’s smiled since she left the program. By the time they finish Sara’s breathing heavily and finds the woman doing the same, and when she looks around the room she finds the recruits stunned by their display. She finds Rip’s eyes.

“I want her.”

“Absolutely not.”

Sara’s taken aback by Rip’s reply, he’d witnessed their match just like anyone else, surely he can see that the woman is the perfect drift partner for Sara.

“Why not?”

“Because Ava’s not a ranger.” Ava. Sara tries the name out in her head, finds it quite fits the woman and that she quite likes the sound of it.

“Why not? She’s clearly got the training.” Sara catches Ava’s eyes and sees resigned disappointment in them.

“The answer is no, find someone else. Class dismissed.” The recruits all start moving at the order and Sara’s about to find Ava when she’s suddenly being pulled into a hug.

“It’s good to see you, Captain.” Sara returns Amaya’s hug, she’d never quite stopped feeling guilty for leaving her team behind and she’s surprised by the hug, sure that they would all hate her for leaving.

When Amaya releases her she sees the rest of her team behind her and they all take turns hugging her, save from Rory who just nods his head and addresses her as ‘boss’ before taking a drink from the beer in his hand. Sara’s glad to see that some things never change. When they all stop hugging her long enough for Sara to turn around she looks for Ava but finds she’s already left the room. She does see the black haired girl she sparred against and calls her over.

“Everyone this is Sin, Sin this is my team.” Everyone greets the girl and she waves at them with a quiet ‘hello’.

“I’m hungry,” Sara declares and ushers the team towards the cafeteria, inviting Sin with them.

As they eat the team catches her up on everything that’s been going on while she’s been gone, but no one as much as speaks Laurel’s name. Sara tells them what she’s been up to and when she mentions her nightly activities Sin starts asking her questions and it’s the first time she’s talked since they sat down so Sara does her best to answer anything she wants to know. Sara can’t help the feeling that something’s missing, tries not to think about the Laurel sized hole in their group, but she’s glad she’s back, she’s missed her team and the Waverider alike. She vows to see it through to the end this time, for Laurel and for her team.


	3. Chapter 3

Sara grunts as she blocks Amaya’s advances. They’re in one of the gyms of the Waverider, it’s not big, designed for those who are drift compatible to spar. Amaya has never and will never be Sara’s partner in a jaeger but the thing that set their little group apart from all the other rangers, the very reason they worked so well together when something required more than just two rangers, more than just one jaeger, is that they are all to some extent drift compatible. Her connection with Amaya isn’t nearly as strong as what she had with her sister, or Ava, but it’s enough that their sparring turns into something akin to a well choreographed dance, something almost as easy as breathing. 

In her five years away from the Waverider sparring with someone she’s drift compatible with is something Sara has greatly been missing. It doesn’t come close to fill the emotional void of no longer being connected to your partner’s mind, but part of her feels alive during these moments. In the end Amaya taps her and they reset, circling each other. Sara glances at Zari sitting off to the side, watching them, or rather, watching Amaya.

“Better step it up, your girlfriend’s watching,” Sara says and Amaya searches her out and it’s enough of a distraction for Sara to swing her staff under Amaya’s feet so she ends up on her back on the mats. She looks like she’s about to say something before her eyes catches something behind Sara.

“Looks like I’m not the only one with an audience,” she says as she gets up and nods to where her eyes are.

Sara follows her eyes and a moment later finds herself on her back, which, fair, but she doesn’t quite mind when her eyes fall on Ava. She smiles an upside down smile from her place on the floor and brings her hand up in a wave and Ava returns it before gesturing for Sara to join her. Sara takes the opportunity to put her hands behind her head on the mats and push off, using the momentum to jump back to her feet. There’s a ‘showoff’ thrown her way from Zari before she grabs her staff and returns it to where the training weapons are stored before making her way to Ava with a quick ‘See you guys later,’ thrown in Amaya and Zari’s direction.

“Ava, hey,” she says as she catches up to her and Ava leads her out into the hall.

“Ms. Lance,” Ava nods in return. Sara studies her for a moment but decides not to comment on the formality of Ava’s greeting.

“What’s up?”

“Mr. Jackson is looking for you.”

“Jax!” Sara smiles, she hasn’t had the chance to see him after she came back. “How come he sent you to find me?”

“He didn’t, he asked Director Hunter where you were who in turn sent me to find you.”

They walk in comfortable silence after that and when they get to the hangar Ava leaves her side to go talk to some engineers off to the side, but Sara hardly notices considering the sight that greets her; she had thought her old jaeger lost to the ocean, but despite a few changes, the biggest of which being that it’s  _ white _ now, in the middle of the room is her jaeger, her Canary, tall and proud and with a young mechanical engineer standing smugly in front of it. Sara runs to greet her friend.

“Hey, little brother,” she says as she pulls him into a hug.

“Hey, cap, I always knew you’d find your way back to us,” Jax says before letting her go. “It’s why I knew I had to fix up this old thing as soon as possible.”

“She’s beautiful,” Sara says, admiring Jax’s work. “Needs a new name though, Black Canary doesn’t quite fit anymore.”

“Yeah, figured she could use a paint job.” The  _ in case it should remind you too much of Laurel _ goes unspoken.

“The White Canary,” Sara says as she reaches out a hand to touch her old jaeger.

“The White Canary it is.”

“Not that it matters much as long as Rip keeps refusing to give me my co-pilot,” Sara’s eyes find Ava as she speaks and Jax follows her gaze and his eyes go wide.

“Ava?”

“Yeah.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Yeah,” Sara sighs. She can’t wrap her head around why Rip won’t make Ava a ranger, she obviously has the training if their sparring match is anything to go by, and she’s not lacking someone she’s drift compatible with either after Sara showed up.

Sara and Jax spend some time catching up, Sara tells him the same story she’s told everyone else about where she’s been for the past five years and Jax catches her up on what he’s been doing at the Waverider, including his restoration project of her jaeger. When it’s time for dinner Sara asks Jax to eat with her and the rest of the team but he tells her he has other plans but to say hi to the rest of them from him. Ava has long since left the hangar so Sara starts making her way towards the cafeteria on her own.

About halfway to the cafeteria she hears a loud thump from one of the halls and follows the sound on autopilot, her five years of chasing bad guys in the streets moving her legs before she can even question it. She’s met with the sight of two men standing over a familiar black haired girl. Before they get the chance to do anything else Sara throws one of them on the floor and pushes the other face first against a wall, twisting his arm behind his back. She kicks him hard in the leg as the first one gets back up from the floor to fight back and as the second one falls to the floor Sara elbows the first one in the face, breaking his nose.

“What the fuck is wrong with you people, the kaiju are waging war on our planet and you’re busy fighting your own?” Sara yells when it’s clear the men have stopped trying to fight back. They run away without answering and Sara turns to the girl still on the floor, offering a hand.

“Sin, right?” Sin nods as she accepts Sara’s help getting up. Sara puts a hand on her face, inspecting a bruise forming around her eye. “What was that about?”

“They’re just mad ‘cause they think I stole the spot of a friend of theirs when I was made ranger and he wasn’t.”

“They, or anyone else, ever lay a hand on you again you come straight to me, okay?” Sin nods.

“Why are you helping me?”

“No woman should ever suffer at the hands of men.” Sara inspects her for a few more seconds before withdrawing her hand. “I’m on my way to the cafeteria, wanna join?”

“Sure,” Sin smiles. Sara puts an arm around her shoulders and then they’re making their way to the cafeteria and the rest of the group together.

 

After dinner Sara makes her way to Rip’s office. She doesn’t bother with knocking, just opens the door and walks right in. Rip looks up from his desk, sees who it is and looks back down.

“No.” It’s just one word, so small and final and said before Sara can even big to speak and it pisses Sara off.

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

“She is the only one here I’m compatible with.”

“I seem to remember you being compatible with just about every person on your so called team.” Sara scoffs.

“I’m not nearly as compatible with any of them as I am with Ava, you saw us together and that was the first time we met, and regardless you’re not gonna split any of them up, they’re too good together.” Rip’s about to reply but Sara gives him a glare saying she’s not done yet. “You didn’t travel all the way to the wall to recruit me back here with the promise to fight to honor my sister just to bench me because you don’t want to give me a partner.” Rip looks at her for a moment before he sighs.

“I’m not making Ava a ranger and that is final, we’ll find someone else.” Sara slams her hands on Rip’s desk before turning around to face the door. Before she leaves she looks at Rip over her shoulder.

“By the way, you should keep your soldiers in check instead of having them fight each other in the halls over things that’s out of their control.”

Sara leaves after that, finds her way to a gym that has a training dummy in it, needing to let out her frustration at Rip in a way that doesn’t involve hurting her boss. She’s going through different kinds of kicks when she hears a familiar voice coming from the door.

“You want someone who’ll fight back?” Ava’s got an eyebrow raised when Sara turns to look at her. Sara only nods in reply while catching her breath. 

They start out easy, both with a wooden staff and just lightly tapping the other, like they teach you at the academy to determine if you’re drift compatible, but the more they fight, the harder they fight until it’s not only a light sparring match but one where neither holds back, confident in the other’s ability to block or dodge the harder hits, the hits that would hurt someone with less skill. Somewhere along the way Sara breaks her staff in two and Ava follows suit, only Ava throws away one of the two pieces whereas Sara holds onto them both. In the end neither have any part of a staff in hand and they’ve moved onto hand to hand instead, still trading blows equally, still confident in the other's ability to not get hurt, both reveling in the feeling of being so in sync, so compatible. They don’t stop until they’re both lying on the floor, breathing hard to catch their breath, but both with smiles on their faces.

“Director Hunter is not going to be happy we broke two staffs,” Ava says and Sara  _ laughs _ and it’s a sound Ava would not be against hearing again.

“Rip should know by now that bringing me back would result in multiple broken staffs.” Sara turns her head to look at Ava. “How come Rip doesn’t want you to be a ranger anyway? You clearly have the training.” Ava looks away, but not before Sara catches a hint of sadness in her eyes and she’s about to tell Ava to forget about it but Ava turns back before she can get the words out and opens her mouth as if to speak.

“When the first kaiju, Savage, arrived he lost his wife and son. I lost my parents but I also lost my aunt and cousin.” Ava bites her lip and just looks at Sara and it takes her a few seconds but then it clicks and she lets out a soft ‘oh’.

“At my request he allowed me to go through the academy training but he’s terrified that if he lets me out here, he’ll lose me too and I’m the only family he has left.”

“I’m sorry.” Sara doesn’t know what else to say and they lay in silence for a little while.

“How come I never met you, last time I was here?” Sara asks in the end, because it seems weird that she had lived in the Waverider for so long but never seen Ava before.

“He mostly had me stay at the academy after I finished my training, I taught new students instead of being out there fighting, Rip thought it would keep me safe. Then Darhk attacked and he had grown attached to both you and your sister, so when you left and Laurel… He wanted me closer, didn’t want to lose me because he refused to see me so he transferred me here. I had hoped that he might finally let me become a ranger but, well.” Ava sighs. 

Sara can’t help but feel guilty, she knew she shouldn’t have let her parents think she had died, but she didn’t think her leaving would affect Rip, he knew she was alive and he obviously knew where she had been spending her time. They lay in silence once more before Sara suddenly gets up. Ava looks at her with a question in her eyes.

“We might make a ranger out of you yet,” she smiles, it’s not a big smile but it’s there and it’s hopeful and Ava can’t help feeling hopeful in return. “I’ll see you,” Sara calls out and then she exits the room.

 

It doesn’t take long for her to find Rip’s office again, she briefly considers if she should shower and change first but can’t find it in her to care, too excited, because now she knows why Rip is so protective of Ava, now she understands, and now she might know a way to convince him to let Ava choose her own destiny. So she opens the door to his office and walks in and leans down on his desk before he even gets a chance to look up from his paperwork. He’s about to talk but Sara beats him to it.

“For a very long time I thought there was nothing I wouldn’t do to bring Laurel back, I thought I’d exchange the world if it meant it wouldn’t exist without her in it. But Laurel wouldn’t want that. All Laurel ever wanted to do was to help people.” Sara takes a steadying breath. “When we were little we’d pretend to be grown ups and we’d have our own jobs, I’d be a doctor and Laurel would be a cop, just like our dad. When we got older she decided she wanted to be a lawyer, she was studying to become one when the kaiju attacked. Then you created the jaeger program and Laurel wanted to save humanity, because that’s who she was, all her life she only wanted to help people.” Sara swallows, has to focus on not letting the tears wanting desperately to get out fall freely. “So how could I be so selfish as to trade all the people she saved just because I don’t want to live without her? She may have died fighting the kaiju but before that she  _ lived _ , she was more alive than I’ve ever seen her right here, and I could never take that away from her just because I want her back, all I can do is be proud of the person she was, proud that I got to call her my sister.” She takes a breath and looks at Rip. “And all you can do is offer your support and be proud of the woman your niece is and let her pick her own path, the path that will let her live.”

Sara doesn’t wait for Rip to answer, just gets up and walks out the door. When the door closes she starts running, desperate to get to her room before she starts crying in the hallway.

She’s almost to her room when she feels a hand on her arm, and Sara has to fight the habit of forcefully removing the hand.

“Sara?” Sara can hear worry in Sin’s voice. “Are you okay?”

She wants to assure the girl that she’s fine, but as soon as she opens her mouth tears start falling down her cheeks and she finds herself wrapping her arms around Sin. Sin wraps an arm awkwardly around Sara and Sara would be embarrassed if she wasn’t so emotionally drained. Sin leads her to a clock tower that’s just outside the Waverider that Sara didn’t even know existed. Sin tells her it where she goes when the world gets to be too much and she just needs to be alone and they sit in silence inside it, staring at the giant clock face that has long since stopped working, before Sin starts telling Sara about her past to fill the silence, and then Sara tells Sin of Laurel, and she’s crying again but she doesn’t really mind, she feels a certain kind of calm in the clock tower and around Sin and the one thing her friends don’t talk about is Laurel and it feels so nice to be able to talk about her without the other person looking like they’re just waiting for Sara to break.


	4. Chapter 4

Sara wakes the next morning in the clock tower with an arm around Sin. It’s not the most comfortable place she’s ever slept but she’s also slept in more uncomfortable places, and she feels more at peace than she’s done in five years after being able to just go on and on about her sister. She also feels a growing fondness when she looks down at the girl in her arms.

“Wake up sleepyhead,” she says as she nudges Sin. She makes a noise of protest but sits up with a yawn. “Good morning,” Sara smiles and tousles Sin’s hair.

“Morning,” Sin says with another yawn.

“We should probably head back to base, I don’t know about you but I could use a shower,” Sara says as she smells herself.

Sin nods and starts making her way down the clock tower. Halfway on their way back to the Waverider Sara lightly bumps her shoulder into Sin’s.

“Thank you.” Sin bumps Sara’s shoulder in response and then they walk the rest of the way back in a comfortable silence.

***

Sara’s eating breakfast a little after most of everyone else on the base has eaten due to her not having slept in her room but she finds she doesn’t quite mind the cafeteria when it’s almost devoid of people. Sin is eating with her and they make a few comments but mostly they just sit in silence and the peace that’s followed Sara since she woke up continues. That is, until Ava, as excited as Sara’s ever seen her, makes her way to their table. Sara’s fairly sure that if Ava wasn’t always trying to keep herself as professional as possible she would be jumping up and down.

“Isn’t it a little early to be so full of energy?” Sara asks but Ava ignores the statement.

“He’ll let us drift!” Sara has never heard Ava sound so happy and it makes the corners of her mouth curve up just a little.

“I must have misheard you-”

“He’s not authorizing anything more but Rip said he will allow us to try drifting together.” If the energy radiating off of Ava isn’t enough to tell Sara how excited she is, the lack of formality when referencing Rip definitely is.

“He will? When?”

“Whenever you’re done eating.”

For a second Sara can’t help but feel like she’s betraying Laurel somehow, she’s going to drift with someone else,  _ share her mind _ with someone else, something she was only ever supposed to do with her sister. She also feels scared over the prospect of drifting with someone so new, laying her life bare for someone she's only known for a few days. But then she looks at Ava and the happiness she finds there is enough to wash away the guilt and fear and she finds herself stuffing the last of her sandwich into her mouth, throwing a hurried goodbye at Sin that’s barely intelligible due to the food in her mouth and follows Ava out of the cafeteria.

When they reach the Canary's head Rip is already there, looking as conflicted as Sara’s ever seen him. She catches his gaze and he nods at her, and Sara nods back, relieved that she had finally gotten through to him. She accepts the drift suit someone gives her and moves to a changing area before quickly changing into it, Ava doing the same. She can sense Ava’s nervousness coupled with her excitement and takes her hand as she leads them into the head of the White Canary.

“Just remember, don’t chase the rabbits.”

Ava nods at her, and then they both take a deep breath before they’re taken into the drift.

Sara feels a wave of familiarity wash over her, but she also can’t help but feel like it’s not familiar at all. It’s the same drift she’s been in hundreds of times before, but it’s a new mind she’s sharing it with. She looks at Ava but instead finds herself looking at Laurel as she gets pulled out of the Canary’s head and Darhk tearing her jaeger apart. 

Somewhere in her mind she hears Laurel’s voice and for a few seconds she’s not in the Canary anymore.

 

_ “Will you stop pacing and sit down?” Laurel asks exasperated. _

_ “Look I know you find all this calming or whatever, but meditation? Really not my thing,” Sara says, not stopping her pacing. _

_ “Just give it a try, we’ll sneak off to the gym and spar after, just please try it out.” _

_ Sara sighs but gives in and sits down opposite her sister, mimicking her crossed legs and her straight back. _

_ “Clear your mind and breathe,” Laurel says as she takes a deep breath. _

_ Sara’s never managed to meditate before, doesn’t understand how she’s supposed to clear her mind, to not think. But something’s changed after coming to the academy, after they learned about drift compatibility and they started sparring. Sara has never felt closer to her sister and she focuses on that newfound connection, on the calm of her sister, and somehow her mind clears, thoughts drifting in and out but not lingering, and she just breathes, just exists. _

_ And she hates to admit it but Laurel was right, the meditation is working, it’s relaxing and Sara allows herself to just be there, in their shared quarters and just existing for a second, the rest of the world forgotten. _

 

Sara closes her eyes and find a rhythm to her breathing, clears her mind as best she can and then she’s back in the Canary, but the White Canary, not the Black, and the person next to her is Ava, not her sister. Only Ava’s not properly present, and when Sara looks for her in her mind she finds a lot younger version of Ava in an alley, standing over the bodies of who can only be Ava’s parents. 

“Ava, listen to me, it’s not real. You survived, Rip killed the kaiju. You’re safe at the Waverider with me.” Ava makes to turn around and Sara puts one hand on each of Ava’s cheeks, forcing her to stay facing Sara. “You and me are the only things here that’s real, I need you to trust me, I need you to stay with me.”

Something gets through and then she’s back to looking at an older version of Ava,  _ her _ Ava, inside the head of the Canary, and the only thing existing is them, and Ava looks at her, really looks at her, and Sara’s mind is filled with Ava and she finally feels whole again, like a part of her has been missing, a part that she shouldn’t have had in the first place, and now Ava’s there and she’s finally Sara again, not just the empty shell she’s been since her sister was taken from her.

Ava smiles at her, the biggest smile Sara’s ever seen, and she’s powerless to do anything but return it, filled not only by her own happiness but by Ava’s, feeling everything that Ava feels, and it’s just enough to not overwhelm her.

It simultaneously feels like mere seconds as well as hours have passed with the two of them just existing with each other before they’re pulled properly back into the real world and out of the drift. But Sara can still feel Ava in her head, can still feel the happiness, the excitedness, the nervousness that Ava’s feeling, and she knows that Ava can feel everything she’s feeling too.

Sara takes a deep breath and takes in her surroundings, accepting that at some point she’ll have to stop focusing just on Ava, despite Ava literally taking up her mind, and the first thing she notices when they exit the Canary is that Rip isn’t there. He had been there when they had entered the drift but apparently had at some point decided that it either wasn’t worth sticking around or it was too much for him. Whatever the reason Sara didn’t know but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

She spends the rest of her day with Ava, even if she wanted to spend some time without her, which she doesn’t, Ava probably wouldn’t have let her. It’s all familiar to Sara, even if part of it, the part that is  _ Ava, _ is not so familiar, sharing herself with someone is familiar, but it isn’t to Ava. Ava has never drifted with anyone and every new detail she discovers about it amazes her to no end.

When they eat dinner Ava finds herself reaching for Sara’s tomato slice, even though logically she has no way to know that the only reason Sara eats them is because it’s on her plate and she refuses to throw away food. A minute later Sara reaches for her pineapple cubes and Ava feels both relieved at not having to pretend to like them and amazed at how Sara just knows Ava won’t want to eat them.

Ava also finds herself feeling fond for Sara’s team, love even. Sara hugs Amaya for some reason that Ava doesn’t really catch but she finds herself wanting to do the same, she doesn’t, because she is Ava Sharpe and she’s professional and she doesn’t actually know these people despite the fact that she’s connected to someone who does. But Sara whispers something in Amaya’s ear and Amaya hugs Ava and it just feels right. Sara tells her she’s part of the team now, there’s no getting out and Ava pulls a face and says that she might just regret it but knows that Sara can feel the happiness that Ava feels at the statement, knows that Sara knows she doesn’t mean it, and she’s never felt as accepted as she does when Sara drags Ava with her to a night of just hanging out with the team. 

Sin’s there too, and Ava can feel Sara’s fondness for her, different somehow than Sara’s fondness for her team, and Ava gets the sudden urge to protect Sin, from what she doesn’t know. Sara pulls Sin down next to her on the couch she and Ava are occupying and puts an arm around the girl as she rests her head on Ava’s shoulder and it all just fits, despite Ava never having been comfortable in a big group, or with someone she technically doesn’t really know that well, but Ava feels more at home than she’s ever done, feels like she belongs. Dread sinks in her stomach at the thought of Rip telling her nothing’s changed, that Rip might take away this newfound bond she has, and at the thought of it she feels like she can’t breathe, but then Sara, upon feeling her worry, because that is a thing now, Sara knowing what she’s feeling, puts a hand on her knee and starts rubbing absentmindedly with her thumb and Ava allows herself to relax and promises to worry about Rip in the morning.


	5. Chapter 5

_ Sara smiles at her sister, Laurel hadn’t been too happy about being woken up in the middle of the night but they can both feel the rush at the thought of fighting a kaiju as they work together as a single unit to move the Black Canary towards it.  _

_ Sara blinks and then she’s screaming as the Black Canary loses an arm, and she screams even louder when the kaiju reaches for the jaeger’s head. Only this time when it pulls back, instead of Sara screaming over losing a sister, she screams for Ava, Ava who’s currently connected to the part that the kaiju has in its hand before she and the part are discarded, lost to the ocean. _

Sara’s eyes fly open as she sits up in her bed. She’s breathing hard and she has to remind herself of where she is, clutches the necklace that’s ever present around her neck. Then she hears a soft knock on her door.

Ava’s still half asleep when she knocks on Sara’s door. She’s not fully aware of what she’s doing there, just knows she woke up suddenly and could feel Sara needing her, so here she is. The door opens a few seconds later and they just sort of stare at each other before Sara opens the door enough for Ava to walk in.

“Sorry, I should have warned you about all of this,” Sara says, gesturing vaguely to herself. “You shouldn’t have to be connected to someone so damaged.”

Within seconds Ava’s hands are on Sara’s cheeks, and Ava’s eyes are staring into Sara’s.

“You’re not damaged Sara.” Sara scoffs, but Ava is still holding her in place, making her look at her. “I’ve read your file, heard the stories, and I chose to be connected to you.” Ava lets go of Sara’s head and Sara looks away.

“Sorry for waking you up,” she says and then she climbs back in her bed, looks at Ava for a second and lifts up the covers, gesturing for Ava to join her.

Climbing in next to Sara and holding her in her arms as they both fall asleep feels like the most natural thing Ava’s ever done, like two pieces of a puzzle made specifically for the purpose of being connected, and once again she finds herself amazed at what it feels like to be connected to someone else, before she feels herself drifting off to sleep once more.

***

The next morning Sara and Ava are both called to Rip’s office.

“I’m not letting you pilot together.”

“What?! Why not?” Sara looks up to Rip, always has and always will, but the more she interacts with him ever since she came back, the more she just really wants to punch him.

“You both chased rabbits,” is all he says, like they’d done something no one else had, like it wasn’t their first time drifting together, like they hadn’t _stopped_ chasing the rabbits.

Sara tells him exactly that, tells him how she and Laurel did the same thing on their first drift, how it was  _ Sara _ who had chased a rabbit first, really it was  _ Sara _ who should be told she isn’t fit to be a ranger if this is how he’s going to look at it.

He dismisses her arguments and Sara storms out of his office without waiting to be dismissed, slams the door and can feel Ava’s worry and disappointment and it makes her even angrier.

***

Ava tries to stay away from Sara, to give her space to work out her frustration, but it’s difficult when she can feel everything Sara feels, when she can pinpoint Sara’s exact location in the Waverider without leaving her room. It takes her an hour and a half before she gives in and lets her legs carry her to Sara. She finds her in the gym, climbing up and down a salmon ladder, and Ava knows for a fact it’s the same thing she’s been doing for the past hour. She has her back turned to Ava and there’s no logical reason she should know Ava’s there, but the next time she reaches the top she lets go of the metal bar and drops to the ground with a thud.

“Why do you just let him boss you around? Why won’t you stand up for yourself?”

“It’s called respect, Director Hunter is our superior.”

“Rip’s being a dick and he can kiss my ass,” Sara says while rolling her eyes. She can feel annoyance rising inside Ava but she doesn’t care, it’s the same annoyance she’s felt all morning. “You’d make a damn good ranger and we all know it.”

“It’s not up to us,” Ava says, a sad undertone to her words, and Sara can feel just a bit of sadness that she knows doesn’t belong to her and she wants to make sure Ava never has to be sad again. 

Instead of a retort, Sara throws a staff at Ava. Ava catches it easily and then they’re both in a battle stance. 

If Ava thought sparring with Sara before they drifted came naturally, sparring with her after having been in the drift with her comes more naturally than breathing. Sara forces Ava down on her knees but then a second later Sara’s forced to join her, and another second passes and they’re both on their feet, ready to go again. If Ava didn’t know better she’d say this is a dance they’ve been dancing their whole life, made to be each other’s partners, but she does know better, although that does nothing to dissuade the second part. Because they’re drift compatible, and not just a little but like they were made for the sole purpose of drifting together and it shows as they both go to strike and they both end up on the floor, and they’re back up again, always moving in sync, as if they’re not fighting each other with staffs, or at least they were staffs before Sara broke hers in half because she caught Rip walking past the open door and wanted to spite him. 

***

A couple of days go by and a scientist, Martin Stein, drifts with a kaiju brain. He learns of the breach in the ocean, a door to the kaiju’s home. Rip formulates a plan, the next time the breach opens they’re going to drop a bomb inside and blow it up. When next the kaiju alarm goes off Sara and Ava both rush to the control center. A scientist, Stein’s partner, is insisting that it’s going to be a double event. Rip’s sending two jaegers and Sara recognizes none of them, though she recognizes the pilots. The first two she sees are the two from the hallway with Sin and anger flares up in Sara, Ava puts a hand on her shoulder before she’s even registered it. Then the next two pilots walk in, Sin and someone Sara doesn’t recognize but he has to be Sin’s partner.

“You’re sending out new rangers?” Sara asks Rip accusingly.

“I’m not sending you without a partner and your team isn’t going to function well when they know the one they look to as a leader isn’t with them, so the new rangers are all I’ve got.”

“They don’t have the experience, you’re sending them on a suicide mission.”

“They’ve been through countless simulations.”

Sara doesn’t wait for Rip to say anything else but instead makes her way as quick as she can to where Sin has yet to board her jaeger.

“Sara!” Sin says when she spots her. Sara gives her a hug, nods to the guy standing next to her. “This is Roy, my co-pilot.”

“Take care of each other out there, remember the most important thing is that you trust each other.” Sin nods and Sara hugs her again before she reluctantly goes back to the control center as Sin and Roy get ready in their jaeger.

The jaegers are put in the ocean and soon enough two kaiju appear. It’s too much and one of the jaegers, the one with the two boys Sara doesn’t particularly like, goes under, its pilots with it. Sara can’t find it in herself to mourn their loss, though one less jaeger to fight the kaiju is never a good thing. Then one of the kaiju lets out a roar along with a pulse and everything within range, the Waverider included, loses power.

For the first time since they met Sara sees Rip at a loss for what to do.

“The Canary’s nuclear.”

Rip looks conflicted for a moment but then nods at Sara and Ava and suddenly they’re hurrying through the Waverider to get to the White Canary. This time when they enter the drift they both let the memories fly, neither chasing anything, and the Canary is taken out into the ocean. 

Again Sara is hit by something familiar yet unfamiliar, she’s in her Canary, ready to fight the kaiju, but she’s here with Ava and not Laurel. And yet, it feels so  _ right _ , though she doesn’t really have time to dwell on it because Sin, along with Tokyo, is in danger and they have kaiju to fight. They fight off one of them easily enough but then the other grabs hold of them and  _ flies _ them up in the air. Sara’s not sure what to do but then Ava smiles at her and tells her they made some modifications to her jaeger, and at the press of a button the Canary’s two arms turn into two swords and Sara would be offended no one told her but she’s too busy admiring the sword arms of her Canary and using one of them to slice open the kaiju holding them. The kaiju lets go and their landing is rough but they make it with no injuries to them or the White Canary and they make fast work of the kaiju when it lands next to them, and then they’re going back to the Waverider again. The moment they’re back Sara looks for Sin, finds her in the medical wing though she and Roy are both mostly unharmed. She hugs Sin and curses Rip for having let them go out there.

Ava looks on from the door, having followed Sara but not daring to intrude on the moment, despite feeling everything that Sara feels for the girl, despite having been as worried, just because Sara had been. But then Sara reaches out a hand in Ava’s direction and Ava’s powerless to do anything but join them, and she’s pulled into the hug and for the nth time since she first drifted with Sara everything just feels right despite having no right to.


	6. Chapter 6

Ava sleeps in Sara’s bed again after the double event, after they not only drifted but  _ piloted  _ the White Canary together. Sara’s sleep is far from peaceful, but whenever she starts reacting to the nightmares Ava puts a hand on her chest, right above her heart, because it feels right, because something in Ava tells her that it will work, and it does, Sara calms down and continues her sleep more calmly. It amazes Ava, but to an extent it also scares her, to be so connected to someone, to have someone know everything about her, and she know everything about them. But it feels so right, so natural, and the fear becomes but a whisper as Sara pushes herself closer to Ava, and Ava tightens the arm she has around Sara.

***

The next day comes and with no kaiju to fight Ava goes back to her usual duties at the base, which means being apart from Sara and it’s weird, because no matter where they are in the base they’re still connected, they still feel each other and if Ava closes her eyes it’s  _ almost _ like she’s next to Sara. But then she opens them and she’s asking Mr. Jackson about the status of their last jaegers and Sara is nowhere to be seen despite being everywhere to be felt.

She lasts until a little after lunch, when she drops off a report on Director Hunter’s desk and finds herself with nothing to do, nothing to hold her back from seeing Sara. She doesn’t even think as she walks through the halls of the Waverider, lets her feet lead her in the direction of Sara, only stopping when she’s standing outside her quarters.

“Door’s unlocked,” Sara’s voice yells from the other side, because of course Sara knows Ava’s there.

Ava takes a breath and opens the door and she can’t hold back a smile as she sees Sara lounging on her bed.

“Rip finally let you have some free time?”

“There was nothing requiring my attention at the moment,” Ava nods with a little frown that Sara finds entirely too adorable.

Ava steps properly into the room and takes a look around. She’s only been there twice before and both times she was too focused on sleep to really pay attention. Not that there’s a lot to pay attention to, apart from the bed currently being occupied by Sara and a picture on the nightstand there’s no sign of anyone actually living in the room. Ava walks over to the picture and picks it up, it’s a picture of two blondes and a guy, one of which looks just like Sara only a lot younger.

“Me, my sister, and our friend Oliver,” Sara says, getting up from the bed to stand next to Ava and look at the picture.

Ava can sense a wave of sadness as Sara’s eyes fall to her sister and without thinking Ava puts a hand on Sara’s shoulder as she sets the picture back down on the nightstand. Sara takes the hand on her shoulder in her own hand and sits down on the bed, pulling Ava with her until they’re both sitting shoulder to shoulder with their back against the wall, neither letting go of the other’s hand.

“She was always the good one, never broke the rules, always did good in school.” Sara shakes her head and looks at Ava. “But you’ve been in my memories inside the drift so I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”

“I mean it was more like glimpses, really, and I must admit the tap dancing in the green costume? Kinda confused me a little, but regardless I’ll listen if you want to talk.” Sara laughs just a little and Ava’s thumb unconsciously starts stroking the hand she’s holding.

“I was Peter Pan in the school play,” Sara starts and the corner of her mouth moves up just a little. “I got up on the stage in the first scene and I just totally froze, I couldn’t remember any of my lines, it was like my mind just went blank. Which lead to tap dancing on the stage before I ran off crying.”

“You’ll have to show me how one day.”

“Maybe, but if I’m teaching you how to dance there are far better ones for me to teach you than tap dancing,” Sara says with a little smirk that makes Ava giggle and blush just a little. And then Sara’s free hand comes up to clutch her necklace.

“What was she like?” Sara regards her for a moment, before she sighs and rests her head on Ava’s shoulder and talks about when she and Laurel were little.

When Sara finishes Ava talks about her own childhood, her parents, her cousin, and Rip and her aunt, somethings Sara remembers from flashes from drifting with Ava but she listens to everything Ava has to say and in the end Ava’s got an arm around Sara with Sara half in her lap leaning against Ava and Ava’s other hand is running up and down Sara’s arm. 

Sara frowns and stops Ava’s hand with her own, pulling it closer to her face as she looks at the watch on Ava’s wrist.

“Dinner was an hour ago,” Sara says as she leans her head back so she can look up at Ava. She makes no other move to get up however, too comfortable in her current position.

“We should go eat,” Ava says as she withdraws her arm enough to look at her own wrist, confirming that they are indeed late for dinner.

Sara makes a disapproving sound as Ava starts untangling them but then her stomach growls and she’s on her feet in seconds once Ava is no longer close to her.

 

By the time they make it to the cafeteria most everyone have already eaten but Ava doesn’t mind the quiet, even more so when Sara is there. They find a place to sit and eat in comfortable silence, before Zari enters the cafeteria.

“Hey cap, wanna see Rory set fire to a dead kaiju part we found in the woods.” Zari stops when she looks up and spots Ava. “Not that we would ever do that, that would definitely be against protocol and we are responsible rangers, see ya.”

Sara nods along with Zari’s words and Ava just raises an eyebrow at them until Zari turns around and walks back where she came from and Ava lets out a little laugh.

“That would definitely be against protocol,” Ava says and Sara can feel a little knot in her stomach from worry that she knows isn’t her own.

“They’ll be fine,” she says with a light smile. “Eat your dinner, Ranger Sharpe.” Ava’s eyes light up at the title and Sara feels the worry dissipate, replaced with excitement.

They sit mostly in silence after that, until Sara stares at Ava with a frown.

“What?” Ava asks.

“You’ve never broken a rule before, have you?”

“No.”

“Not even a little? Never stayed out past curfew? Stayed up a little longer than you were supposed to?” Ava shakes her head. “Come with me,” Sara says as she stands up and grabs Ava’s hand dragging her with her.

“Where are we going?”

“To break a rule,” Sara smirks and Ava rolls her eyes but she can’t help but feel a little excited at whatever Sara has in mind and Sara’s own excitement does nothing to stop that.

 

“You cannot be serious,” Ava says as they find a group of people next to a decent sized chunk of rotting flesh that can only have belonged to a kaiju at some point.

“Boss, you made it,” Mick says and produces a beer for Sara.

“Come on Sharpe, live a little,” Sara says as she takes a sip from her beer. 

Ava rolls her eyes before she snatches Sara’s beer and chugs a good portion of it. She registers whooping that can only belong to Nate and Jax. When she hands the beer back to Sara Sara looks mildly surprised, and they can both feel something that neither can name as they just look at each other, until Ray, cautious, rule following Ray ushers everybody back as Mick gets ready to set fire to the chunk of kaiju. Ava doesn’t quite know what she expected but the flesh barely catching fire and simply scorching where Mick holds the flame is a little anticlimactic in her opinion. Mick seems to be enjoying himself though and Ava holds back the urge to stop the fire and send everyone back to base. 

Sara pulls Ava with her down onto a log, the rest of the group doing the same on logs piled in a circle. Ava gets the feeling this isn’t the first time they’ve been out here and she tries not to think about any rule breaking they may have done.

“So, was it as traumatic an experience as you thought it’d be?” Sara asks as she turns her head to talk to Ava.

“I think I’ll manage without the guilt eating me up,” Ava says with a small laugh.

“Good, can’t have my co-pilot running out on me, tried piloting the Canary solo before and it was not an experience I’d like to repeat.” Sara says it with a smile but Ava can feel a small wave of sadness at the memory. She wants nothing more than to take away Sara’s sadness forever. She puts her hand above Sara’s and Sara’s hand turns around to hold Ava’s.

Nate stands up, dragging Ray with him, and sways a little too closely to Sara, bumping into her and making her fall back off the log, pulling Ava with her and Ava turns around as she falls to try and brace herself for the fall, but instead of hitting the ground she lands on top of Sara, stopping herself with her face only inches from Sara’s. She’s close enough that their breaths mingle and her eyes involuntarily falls to Sara’s lips, her own tongue coming out to absentmindedly wet her own lips. Sara reaches a hand up to cup Ava’s cheek but then Ava’s being pulled back up on the log by an apologizing Nate as Ray makes to help Sara when Ava’s no longer on top of her.

Ava blinks as the world comes back into focus and sighs when Sara is back on the log next to her and leaning her head on Ava’s shoulder, Ava’s hand automatically going around Sara to hold her partner close. Something that has quickly become a habit that Ava might think more into if it weren’t for the fact that it all feels so natural, that  _ Sara _ feels so natural. She rests her own head on top of Sara’s as Ray goes to convince Mick to literally stop playing with fire and Nate tells some myth about the kaiju he’s been looking into. Ava’s only a little surprised when she finds herself smiling at the group with a certain fondness, one that’s similar to what she feels from Sara but that she knows is her own. She closes her eyes and for a second there are no kaiju threatening everyone’s existence, for a second she just exists, here, with Sara and her family.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took this long to get this chapter out, I'm not great with writing combat and so it took some time for me to find the words to write this, I'm still not too happy with it but hopefully it's not terrible  
>  ~~someone also got me addicted to xena which ended up being very distracting lmao~~

A few days go by and everyone is on high alert. Rip makes a new plan, this time using every available jaeger with the White Canary leading the assault and they’re all just waiting for the kaiju alarm to go off, waiting for their shot to end this invasion once and for all.

Sara’s never been good at waiting. She spends most of her time in the gym with Ava, sparring others from her team when Ava’s busy with her other duties, that she still has which Sara thinks is ridiculous, she’s a ranger now, she shouldn’t be Rip’s secretary or whatever too, especially when that means that time she could be spending with Sara is rather spent running around the Waverider and delivering reports that will probably just be glanced over before being put in a pile, never to be seen again.

It’s currently been half a day since she’s seen Ava and it’s making her frustrated, enough so that she slams Nate a little rougher than intended onto the floor when he charges her. She’s currently sparring all three pilots of the Lucas because she wants a challenge but it doesn’t even come close to sparring Ava, does nothing to push thoughts of Ava out of her mind. Not that pushing Ava out of her mind is really on the table anymore. Ray tries to hit her while she’s still distracted by Nate but Sara easily senses him coming and sidesteps the attack before turning around, hitting Ray in the leg, hard enough to send him to the ground with a yelp of pain.

“Sorry,” she says as she throws her staff on the ground, offering Nate a hand while Wally helps Ray back up.

“We’re fine,” Ray says, only the slightest hint of pain on his face as he puts his weight on the leg Sara had hit.

Sara’s about to respond when the kaiju alarm sounds and they all rush to their jaegers.

 

Rip has a speech, when the whole base is gathered, about their losses, all they’ve done, and now, with one final mission, they’re going to cancel the apocalypse. He catches up to Sara before she gets in the White Canary, puts a hand on her arm to stop her as Ava continues to walk away from them.

“Promise me you’ll keep her safe,” he begs, his face displaying the same emotions Sara feels when she thinks of the possibility of Ava not returning from the mission.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Promise me you’ll do your best to keep yourself safe too.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to cancel the apocalypse.”

Rip shakes his head and sighs.

“If not for anyone else, try to come back for Ava’s sake.”

Sara clenches her jaw, before she takes Rip’s hand in hers.

“It’s been an honor, Director Hunter,” she says and then they’re hugging before Rip goes back to the control center and Sara goes on to board the White Canary one last time.

 

The plan is simple, the Wave will bring the bomb to the breach while it’s still open, the rest of the jaegers fighting the kaiju off long enough for it to be done. Then when the breach is no more they’ll fight off the rest of the remaining kaiju and peace, from the kaiju at least, will return to earth.

As soon as they hit the bottom of the ocean one of the kaiju appears and charges at them. The Totem leaps at it and grabs on, pulling it away from the rest of the jaegers and the bomb that’s going to save the world.

“We’ll keep this one busy, Captain,” Amaya says with a grunt as the Totem continues its assault on the kaiju.

“Striker help them out,” Sara orders, getting a quick reply from the newest rangers before their group of jaegers, now down to three, continues their march towards the breach.

They've almost reached the breach by the time the second kaiju makes itself known.

“We’ll take this one, Cap,” Ray says as the Lucas starts running towards the kaiju.

The Wave is standing at the edge of the breach, ready to take the leap that will end the invasion, with Sara and Ava keeping an eye out for any kaiju that might still be around, when Rip’s constant information stops coming, and Martin Stein’s voice takes over.

“It’s not going to work. Listen to me carefully, it doesn’t matter if the breach is open, if you throw that bomb at it it will bounce back, like it’s always done. The breach is designed to only let kaiju DNA through, so to get the bomb through you need to trick it into thinking you’re kaiju.”

“Captain?” Snart asks, the Wave just a few steps away from the breach. Rip beats Sara to an answer.

“Take the step Ranger, we’re too close to ending this war.”

“If we take the wrong shot this will be just another failed mission, don’t move closer, do you understand?”

“Loud and clear boss,” Mick says before the Wave turns around to face them.

“I hope you know what you’re doing Ms. Lance.”

“She does,” Ava says and Sara can’t help but shoot her a smile.

“Captain, our kaiju is dead, making our way back to you,” Amaya says.

“What about you Lucas?”

“We’re working on it!” Nate says.

Sara’s about to order someone to help them when Rip speaks again.

“There’s two more signatures from the breach!” Not a minute later two large kaiju make their way up into the ocean.

“You take the one on the right and we’ll deal with the one on the left,” Snart says as the Wave rubs its hands together.

“Sounds good to me,” Sara says as she pushes a button, making the arm on her side of the Canary turn into a sword. A moment later the kaiju charges them and as they try to cut it with the blade, the kaiju tears the entire arm of. “Fuck!” Sara says as she forces herself to keep her mind clear, trying not to fall into the memory so similar to this from five years ago.

“Stay with me, Sara,” Ava says and Sara nods as the Canary’s remaining arm turns into a blade.

“Captain? We have a small problem, the kaiju’s disabled the Lucas, there’s nothing we can do.”

“Are your pods still functional?”

“Affirmative.”

“Get in your escape pods and get the hell out of dodge, Totem and Striker take care of the kaiju and draw its attention away from the boys.”

A unanimous “Roger” comes from the pilots of all three jaegers. Sara looks at Ava and finds Ava looking back at her, they share a nod before focusing their full attention on the kaiju getting ready to charge them again. The Canary’s two pilots briefly register the Wave chasing its own kaiju a ways away from them, leaving them alone with their own kaiju. As it charges them again they move as one as they command the Canary’s remaining sword arm upwards, kneeling down and slicing the kaiju in two, the kaiju falling dead on the ocean floor.

“Captain? There’s a problem.”

“What?”

“You know that bomb we were going to throw into the breach? The kaiju kind of tore it off our back.”

“What?! Are you telling me that there’s a kaiju swimming around with a bomb?”

“More like there’s a bomb on the ocean floor that the kaiju is very interested in. Now the good news is that we can still detonate it, the bad news is that the kaiju also tore off half our legs, making walking impossible.”

“You’re not detonating it when it’s near you.”

“Better than letting a kaiju run free with a bomb, don’t you think?”

“Don’t tell me Rip gave you a bomb without a timer on the trigger.”

“There is, but I don’t see how that makes it any better.”

Sara shakes her head.

“Set the timer and get in your escape pods.”

“And if the kaiju loses interest in the bomb before it explodes?”

“Then we’ll kill it the old fashioned way, now set the damn timer and get in your escape pods, that’s an order.”

“Aye aye, Captain. We’ll see you back at base,” Snart says and the comms from the wave goes silent.

"Striker, Totem, you might want to brace yourselves,” Sara says as she shares a look with Ava and they force the blade of the Canary’s arm down into the seafloor, bracing themselves for what’s soon to come. Not long after a shockwave makes its way through a large portion of the ocean, clearing away the water around the breach and the jaegers, before the shockwave ends and all the water comes rushing back. When the water has once more calmed, the White Canary stands up and moves to grab the dead kaiju, dragging it near the breach and forcing it to open once more.

“And how will you blow up the breach without a bomb?” Rip asks, talking for the first time in a while. Sara smirks.

“The Canary’s basically a walking nuclear reactor, all we gotta do is get her into the breach, activate the self destruct, then get the hell out of dodge.”

“Captain? We wounded the kaiju but after the blast it ran away from us and it’s heading in your direction.” Not sooner has the words left Amaya’s mouth before a kaiju shows up out of nowhere and charges the Canary, wrapping itself around the jaeger.

Despite the kaiju clinging to them, Sara and Ava move the Canary down towards the breach, all the while trying to remove the kaiju. It manages to tear off one of the oxygen pipes on the Canary’s back before they move the Canary’s remaining arm, no longer in sword form but with a gun at the end instead, and empty an entire clip into the kaiju’s stomach. The kaiju goes limp and falls from the Canary, and Ava follows suit, her oxygen slowly running out.

“Fuck, stay with me Ava,” Sara says as she searches for her own oxygen source, tearing off the tube and switching it with Ava’s. “It’s okay, I can do the rest on my own, all I have to do is fall.” Sara presses a button and Ava’s body is lifted up towards her escape pod. Ava moves and Sara hears a muffled “God damn it Lance!” before the escape pod gets sealed and launched into the ocean.

Sara’s immediately hit with anger mixed with worry that she knows comes from Ava but she finds doesn’t care how Ava feels as long as she’s safe. She leans back for a moment, takes a second to breathe while falling through the breach. She can feel her connection to Ava getting weaker as she comes closer to another world, but she can still feel her at the back of her mind even as she’s at the end of the breach. She’s immediately struck by how big and different the kaiju’s world is, can’t help but be a little awestruck, but she shakes it off, she has a mission to finish. She presses the button to initiate the Canary’s self destruct but nothing happens.

Sara curses as she unlocks herself from everything keeping her in place in the Canary so she can move around in search of the manual self destruct. She thinks the little oxygen she has left and the little time that she’ll get before the Canary blows up won’t be enough time to get in her escape pod from her current position and get far enough away from the explosion, and as she initiates the self destruct she thinks she doesn’t quite mind it. She’s finished her mission, saved her planet from the apocalypse, and she’s ready to go see her sister again. She almost doesn’t move, but then she feels the worry from before, the worry that doesn’t really belong to her, and Rip’s words from before they left the Waverider replays in her mind: “If not for anyone else, try to come back for Ava’s sake.”.

Sara sighs as she starts moving back to her original position in the Canary. She still doesn’t think she has quite enough time or oxygen to make it by the time the Canary explodes, but, as she refastens everything to herself and initiates her own ascent into her escape pod, she thinks that she has to do everything she can to survive, so that Ava won’t have to feel what she had to five years ago, so that Ava doesn’t have to feel her drift partner violently torn from her mind. She closes her eyes and says a silent goodbye to her jaeger, and hopes that she’s made it in time.

 

When Ava reaches the surface her anger has mostly dissipated, fully replaced by worry. Her worry is only enhanced by the fact that she can’t seem to feel Sara anymore. She quickly opens her escape pod and climbs out of it, tearing her helmet off in the process, sits on top of the pod and looks around her for a sign of the White Canary’s second escape pod. She sees a pod in the distance and for a second she thinks it’s Sara’s pod, but then she spots the pod next to it and who can only be Rory and Snart sitting next to each other. She spots two more pairs as well as a group of three escape pods but the pod belonging to her own drift partner is nowhere to be found.

She’s just about ready to try to swim down into the ocean, foolish as the rational part of her brain knows it is, when a pod floats to the surface just a few meters away from her. Ava doesn’t think as she jumps into the ocean and swims the little distance to Sara’s pod, constantly searching for that link between them that has been impossible to turn off. She climbs on top of Sara’s pod and rips off the top of it. Sara gives no sign of life as Ava rips off her helmet and tries to wake her up.

“There’s no vital signs detected.” Rip’s words sends a new wave of panic through Ava. “Our sensors could be wrong…”

Ava doesn’t respond, instead she focuses her strength on half pulling Sara out of the pod, searching for a pulse but her hands are too frantic in their search and she finds none.

“Don’t you dare give up on me, Lance,” she says with tears in her eyes as she pulls Sara close and buries her head in her shoulder.

“I’ve never been one to disappoint a pretty girl.” Sara lets out a cough and Ava feels relief coursing through her body as she hugs Sara tighter. “You know, this really isn’t the way I like to be choked.”

“I hate you,” Ava says as she releases her hold on Sara and leans back a little, a faint blush showing on her cheeks, cheeks that are still wet from tears.

Sara smirks at her and a shiver runs down Ava’s spine, half from the look on Sara’s face and half from _feeling_ Sara again.

“Did we win?”

“The breach is sealed, you did it! We’re sending a helicopter to pick all of you up as we speak.”

“Yaaaas,” Sara says as she leans her head back and all Ava can do is look at her and smile.

There’s a number of emotions swimming around inside of her, some of them her own, some of them Sara’s, and some of them belonging to both of them. When Sara looks back up at her Ava’s body moves on its own as her hands come up to cup Sara’s face and she leans down to meet her.

 

Sara’s surprised when she feels Ava’s lips press against her own, even more surprised that there’s still things Ava can do to surprise her with the connection they have. Her surprise is quickly discarded in favor of pushing back against Ava, and she can’t help smiling into the kiss. They pull back and press their foreheads together as they sit and wait for the helicopter to come pick them up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there'll be a short epilogue to this hopefully in a few days


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way longer than I thought it would but it's finally done and I think the longest chapter so yay, I hope you guys enjoy the end to this fic!

There’s a party, to celebrate the sealing of the breach. They get one night of rest after their last mission before they have to put on a happy face so the people might look at the rangers who saved the earth. The first part of the night is spent in the medbay, they’ve all got some cuts and bruises and both pilots of the Canary have to go through extra tests to make sure their short lack of oxygen didn’t do any permanent damage, but then they’re all allowed to go back to their rooms for the night.

Ava follows Sara to Sara’s quarters without any of them giving it a second thought. They haven’t stopped touching since they got out of the ocean other than when it was absolutely necessary for their check ups, whether it be holding hands, embracing or just a light touch on the other’s back, and it’s no different as they quickly walk to the quarters, hand in hand. Somewhere along the way Ava’s hand lets go of Sara’s in favor of curling around Sara’s waist instead, and as it does Sara leans into Ava. When they finally make it to the room both are too tired to go through the process of getting ready for bed and collapse on the bed instead, sleepily getting the covers properly covering them and snuggling up to each other. After it takes less than a minute for both to be sound asleep.

 

“Sara!” Sara wakes to her name whisper-shouted into her hair and a tense arm around her waist that pulls her closer.

“What?” Sara says sleepily. When all she gets in response is her name and the arm around her waist tightening even more, Sara deduces that the other person currently in her bed is still sleeping. She pries Ava’s arm away enough for Sara to turn around to face her.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says and places a hand on Ava’s cheek, stroking it with her thumb. “Ava wake up, it’s okay, I’m right here.”

Ava’s eyes fly open and there’s a moment of panic in them that Sara feels deep in her gut before it fades as Ava recognizes where they are. The hand on Sara’s waist pulls her closer and Ava rests her forehead against Sara’s.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Ava says and a single tear runs down her cheek. Sara catches the tear with her thumb.

“I’ll try,” she says with a half smile, both of them knowing neither would hesitate to jump back into the kaiju war should it resurface. “Try to get some more sleep,” Sara says and presses a gentle kiss to Ava’s lips. Ava’s hand on Sara’s waist starts absentmindedly stroking the bare skin from where Sara’s shirt has ridden up as they both let sleep take them.

 

Sara wakes again when there’s a knock on the door to her quarters. She ignores it at first in favor of staying in Ava’s embrace but when there’s another, more insistent knock she reluctantly untangles herself from Ava and opens the door with an annoyed look on her face.

“What?” she asks, the same annoyance evident in her sleep ridden voice.

The boy at the door hastily finds a long black bag labeled ‘Lance’ and hands it over to her along with a message from Rip explaining that there’ll be a party later and they’re all expected to show up in the uniform handed to them by Gary. The boy, Gary, makes to leave when his eyes fall behind Sara on the sleeping form still in her bed, only looking a little surprised to find Ava in Sara’s room. He quickly finds the bag labeled ‘Sharpe’ and makes his escape. When she closes the door and makes to lay down the bags she feels a moment of panic and she stops in her tracks, has to take a moment to breathe, before relief takes over. She turns back to the bed and finds Ava’s eyes trained on her.

“Who was that?” Ava asks as Sara makes her way back to the bed, flopping down on it next to Ava. Ava immediately reaches a hand out to touch Sara, as if to make sure she’s there, and Sara turns on her side and puts a hand on Ava’s cheek before she responds.

“Just some guy named Gary, he just came by to drop off some uniforms for later at Rip’s command.”

There’s a flash of familiarity in Ava’s eyes at the name but she just nods in response and pulls Sara closer to her, not ready to get up and share Sara with the rest of the world just yet.

 

“So did Rip just have a uniform for everyone lying around the base?” Sara calls from the bathroom as she finishes getting dressed in the navy uniform with marks on it that Sara can’t be bothered to try and figure out what means. Ava gives a noncommittal sound in response and joins Sara in the bathroom. She hasn’t let Sara out of her sight since they woke up and Sara had almost asked her to just join her when she was changing clothes but Ava had been fine with waiting in Sara’s room, just next to the bathroom door. Not that Sara minds, she’s not exactly eager to let Ava out of her own sight either.

When Ava enters and lets her eyes take in every part of Sara Sara feels a warm feeling low in her belly, a feeling that’s mirrored when she lets her own eyes run over Ava in a similar navy uniform, her hair in a tight bun and a hat with matching color to the uniform on her head. Sara pulls her in for a lingering kiss, reluctant to pull away but has to when a bell rings through the base, signaling they’re all supposed to meet up.

 

And then there’s the party. Every remaining ranger gets ushered on a makeshift stage and somewhere along the way Sara drags Jax up with her because their star mechanic is not escaping having to be shown off along with the rest of them. There are cameras filming it and they have to shake hands with Rip and three different old guys Sara can’t be bothered to learn the names of. When they’re let off the stage and told to mingle Sara finds she’s expected to shake hands with more people she doesn’t know but at least when she’s on the floor there’s food and alcohol.

Rip whisks Ava away to meet with some people and Sara’s stopped by someone else to have a conversation she’s only half paying attention to, the rest of her attention focused on where Ava is in the room and how fast she can be back by her side. Rip sends her a curious glance when he catches her staring but Sara can’t begin to care. Ava finishes her conversation but before Sara can rejoin her she’s stopped by someone else and Sara has to stop herself from audibly groaning. As she excuses herself from a conversation she stopped taking part of long ago she decides that she needs to get Ava somewhere there isn’t so many people around them, so many people _between_ them.

 

Ava nods along to the conversation going on around her as she tries to subtly scan the room. She had tried to keep Sara in her line of sight since Rip whisked her away from her but she had taken her eyes off her for a minute and now she can’t seem to find her and she can feel her stomach start to turn. She closes her eyes for a second, takes a breath, tries to tune out all the people around her and focuses on Sara, tries to feel her instead of see her, and is immediately hit by an annoyance she herself has felt ever since they were split apart, and Ava finds herself unable to suppress a smile. She tries to follow the conversation, her anxiety somewhat eased by being able to feel Sara, but she constantly finds her eyes searching the room. She’s about to find some way to excuse herself, certain her legs will find their way to Sara should she let them, when there’s a familiar “hey” spoken next to her. She turns to see Sara with one hand up in a wave and the other hidden behind her back.

“Mind if I steal Ranger Sharpe away?” she asks, her hand already going to intertwine with Ava’s and her feet already backing away. Ava says a not-as-polite-goodbye as she would have liked with the time Sara gives her as Sara drags her away but she finds she doesn’t quite care when she’s finally close to Sara again.

“Miss me?” Sara asks when they’re as much to themselves as they can be in a room filled with people. It’s half teasing and Ava knows Sara already knows the answer, knows she’ll have felt it, but Ava also knows it to be true for Sara, felt the annoyance at being away, the relief of being back together, and the _something else_ Sara’s feeling now as she lets her eyes travel down Ava’s body.

“So, we saved the world, I think we should celebrate,” Sara says when her eyes finds Ava’s again.

“We are celebrating,” Ava says, frown on her face.

“I was thinking a more private celebration,” Sara says and bites her lip, tone far too innocent for what she’s thinking, what she’s _feeling_. She lightly shakes her hand and Ava finally sees why she had it hidden, a bottle of whiskey in it that Ava’s sure she doesn’t want to know how Sara got her hands on.

“Oh,” Ava says and Sara raises an eyebrow. “That, uh, that sounds good,” she adds, a bit distracted by thoughts of what a private celebration might entail, and Sara smirks as she starts dragging Ava out of the room.

They’re almost out of the room when they’re stopped by a young woman, or rather Sara’s stopped, if it weren’t for Sara’s hand firmly in her own Ava wouldn’t have been noticed.

“Ranger Lance! What you did to the breach is incredible!” she says and holds out her hand to Sara.

“We were only doing our duty,” Sara says as if she didn’t notice the remark was only directed at her. Sara hands the bottle of whiskey over to Ava to shake the woman’s hand, unwilling to let go of Ava’s hand with her other one.

“Don’t sell yourself short, you went above and beyond to close it, you’re so brave.”

Ava looks down, unable to not notice the woman’s hand still holding onto Sara’s. She clenches her jaw and untangles her hand from Sara’s to instead wrap it around Sara’s waist. Sara leans into her at the action and finally pulls her hand away from the woman’s, waves goodbye at her and continues their walk out of the room.

“It’s cute that you’re jealous,” Sara says when they’re walking the hallways, finally on their own.

“I’m not jealous!”

Sara stops and turns around to face Ava.

“You realize I can still feel you right? And even if I couldn’t your body was a dead giveaway.”

“I’m not jealous,” Ava repeats, ignoring the fact that her emotions is the one thing she can’t lie to Sara about.

“Sure,” Sara says smugly and pushes Ava up against the nearest wall. “What do you feel if I do this?” she asks, her voice laced with innocence. She puts a hand on Ava’s neck to guide her down and the other she uses to pull Ava’s shirt up from her pants so she can slip her hand underneath it. Ava responds by wrapping her arm, the one not holding the whiskey, around Sara’s middle and leans down the last few inches to close the distance between their mouths. Sara’s hand inches higher under Ava’s shirt as she coaxes Ava’s mouth open and Ava can in all honesty say that what she’s now feeling has nothing to do with jealousy.

“Wait,” she says out of breath when she pulls back and Sara’s hand has almost reached her breasts. Sara pulls away slightly with a dazed look on her face. “We’re in the hallway.”

Sara smirks and pulls away enough that she can grab Ava’s hand and continue to pull her along. “You’re right, we should continue this somewhere more private,” she says with a twinkle in her eyes and Ava giggles as she follows her all the way to her room.

When they’re finally in the room Sara takes back the bottle of whiskey and removes the top, taking a sizable sip from it. Ava finds her eyes glued to Sara’s throat as she does so. The moment Sara puts the bottle down Ava closes the distance between them and kisses her, her hands starting on the buttons on Sara’s uniform. She trails kisses down to Sara’s throat and Sara moans in approval as Ava starts paying particular attention to a spot on her throat.

With minimal effort Ava gets Sara out of her uniform jacket, swiftly followed by her shirt. Ava’s hands start exploring Sara’s torso and Ava leaves a trail of kisses all over Sara’s collarbone, until her lips and hands abruptly stops.

“Aves?”

Ava moves a hand up from Sara’s abs to just below her shoulder, lightly brushing Sara’s skin as she does so. It’s not the purpose of the movement but Sara shivers at the sensation nonetheless, wants nothing more than for Ava’s hands to get back to what they were doing. It’s only when Ava traces a featherlight finger right underneath her shoulder that Sara remembers the scar there, along with countless other scars she’s acquired ever since the kaiju first invaded. Ava presses a gentle kiss to the scar and pulls back, properly looks at Sara’s bare torso save for her bra. Ava looking at her like that does nothing but make Sara’s need more present and she holds back a groan when all Ava does is trace a scar on Sara’s stomach. She pulls Ava in for a kiss, making her intent clear as she licks into Ava’s mouth and brings her hands up to start working on Ava’s jacket. Ava sighs into her mouth but her hands finally resume their exploration, sliding around to Sara’s back to unclasp her bra. When Sara’s finally wrangled Ava out of her jacket and shirt she pushes her towards and down on the bed, Sara quickly following her, straddling Ava’s waist. As Sara starts exploring her body Ava makes a note to search out all of Sara’s scars later.

 

When Sara wakes up in Ava’s arm and a bubble of peace around her she feels happier than she’s felt in a long time. She presses a kiss to the arm Ava has draped around her shoulders, a smile on her lips that doesn’t leave until there’s a sounds of something vibrating against the nightstand and Sara holds back a groan as she rolls out of Ava’s arms to grab the phone Rip had given to her. The moment she sees the number calling guilt washes over her, replacing the serenity of waking up in Ava’s arms. It’s been more than twenty four hours since they sealed the breach and in all that time Sara’s been too preoccupied with accepting that they won and spending time with Ava and her team and then the celebration to even think about calling her parents to tell them it’s over.

She accepts the call and places the phone between her ear and shoulder, giving a greeting while searching for something to wear, settling on the white shirt on the floor that’s just a bit too big to be the one she wore yesterday. She leaves it unbuttoned and takes the phone in her hand to properly hold it against her ear and walks to the sole window in her room as both her parents say a mix of “how are you”, “we saw the news”, and “is it really over”.

“It’s over,” Sara says as she looks out, the view isn’t much but it’s nature and sunlight, signs of the world living despite everything that’s happened. “We did it.” Somehow telling her parents makes it more real, someone who exists outside of the base.

“When are you coming home?” her dad asks. Sara closes her eyes, hasn’t allowed herself to properly think of Starling in years, thought she would never get the chance to go back and now that she realizes she can, realizes she’ll get to see her parents again Sara almost can’t believe it’s real.

“Soon, I think. They want to keep us a few days for observation and whatnot but it shouldn’t be long.”

Sara hears movement from the bed followed by footsteps leading to the window. She feels arms wrap around her and leans back into Ava, lets her head fall on Ava’s shoulder. She tells her parents goodbye with a promise to keep them updated on when she gets to come back. She puts the phone down on the windowsill and stays wrapped up in Ava and the bed sheets Ava’s draped around herself.

“Is that my shirt?” Ava asks, breaking the silence, as a hand travels down to the bottom of the shirt, too long to properly fit Sara.

“Maybe,” Sara says and turns around in Ava’s arms to face her, placing a quick kiss on the corner of Ava’s mouth. “Hey Aves?”

“Hmm?”

Sara hesitates before she asks, chews her lip for a second, and when Ava starts rubbing calming circles into her back she knows Ava can feel her anxiety. “Where’s your home?”

Ava’s ministrations stop and she gets a frown on her face as she thinks through Sara’s question.

“Where I grew up hasn’t been home ever since…” Ava doesn’t finish the sentence but it doesn’t take much for Sara to figure out since when. “The academy was home for a few years I suppose, then this base,” Ava says and chews her lip and it’s Sara’s turn to rub soothing circles into Ava’s skin as she feels Ava’s anxiety. “And for the past few days it’s been you.” Ava averts her eyes, but Sara places a hand on her cheek and leans up to kiss her, happiness and warmth spreading through her at Ava’s words. Ava knows the little time they’ve spent together shouldn’t be enough to designate Sara as her home, but with her thoughts being filled by Sara every second they’ve been apart and the connection between them thanks to the drift, it’s hard to think of her as anything but. Sara hears the words and all she can think is how right they feel.

“What were your plans for the end of the war?”

“I didn’t have any, the war was all there was to plan for. I guess, before…” Ava only rests her forehead against Sara’s but Sara understands what she means, before everything between them. “I just would have gone wherever Rip told me to, he’s not going to stay still for long with the kaiju no longer a threat.”

Sara nods her head and swallows, tangles one of her hands in Ava’s hair. “Is that what you want to do?” Sara asks and holds her breath as she looks at Ava with hopeful eyes.

“Is there a better offer?” Ava asks, a tentative but hopeful smile on her lips. Sara appears to think it over, closes her eyes and rests her head on Ava’s shoulder. After a few tortuously slow seconds Sara turns her head, still on Ava’s shoulder, to look up at her.

“Hey, Aves?” she asks and Ava rolls her eyes fondly as she gives a “hmm?” in response.

“Wanna come with me to Starling?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Ava says, a full smile on her lips as she leans down to kiss Sara.

“So that’s a yes?” Sara asks when Ava pulls back.

“Yes,” Ava says and nuzzles her nose against Sara’s. “Now about you stealing my shirt…” Ava trails off as she lets the bed sheets around her fall to the floor and grabs the shirt lapels with both her hands.

“Want it back?” Sara asks with a smirk. Ava gives her a nod and pushes the shirt off of Sara’s shoulder, leaves it with the bed sheets and drags Sara towards the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hmu [@wardenroot](http://wardenroot.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


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